Archive: Around Town

Not all of the class of 2011 graduated in June. Eight students completed additional work over the summer.  Tuesday they were celebrated at their own commencement ceremony.  Family and friends filled the Lansing High School Library where school administrators and the Board Of Education honored the students.

"I know what each one of these students have had to go through," said Principal Eric Hartz.  "One of the hardest things to do is call a parent and call a student to the office and have a discussion on the last day of June about not graduating.  These students have overcome different trials and tribulations throughout their time here."

Kayla Armstrong, Jordan Campbell, Victoria Clute, Frank Khan, Mason Golden, Morgan Rolley, Jaissy Singh Sekhon, Jessy Weber completed the work necessary to earn their diplomas this summer.  Hartz says that administrators and the school board agreed it was important to hold a formal graduation to honor the hard work these students put in above and beyond the traditional school year.  He noted that some students spent one or more summers in summer school, and one took time from work to attend Ithaca High School to make up a class.  Others took online classes.

"That's not easy," he said.  "It's not easy to give up your summer.  it's not easy to have a principal tell you that you didn't make it.  But when you persevere, at the end there is definitely a reward."

Each was called to the front, where Hartz presented them with a diploma, and they were congratulated by Superintendent Stephen Grimm and Board of Education President Anne Drake.

"I want to say how proud I am of all of you," Drake said in an emotional statement.  "It takes a special person to do what you did.  To go to summer school and to come back here to graduate.  This is why we are here.  For you."

"This is the ABCs," said Superintendent Stephen Grimm.  "To have an Attitude that allows you to achieve something.  To have a Belief that you can do it, and the desire to go after it, and then the Character, perseverance, the respect for what an education means, what a diploma means, the respect for your families, and the responsibility that you have to yourself to be a better person.  It's amazing that you have that kind of drive when you're in the fourth quarter on overtime, that you can did down and make that happen.  That's the true test of who you are, and you're here tonight."


Some students were unable to attend the ceremony because they are attending college, but five of the eight received their diplomas in person Tuesday.

"Tonight there are eight students who made a great choice to go back and finish," Hartz said.  "My father taught me that the one thing that nobody can ever take from you is your education, and it's so true.  there are so many materialistic things in this world that can be taken from you.  But an education is something that if you put the hard work in, and the dedication in, you own it.  It's yours."

The ceremony was followed by a brief reception.

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